Study and organization proposal for the IT service of a University in order to answer their current and future needs

Context of the intervention

The organization assisted by MLA is a French private University. The number of students in this university has been skyrocketing those last few years with more than 10,000 students today. It increased so much that the University had to move into wider premises.

However, the ISD kept the same number of employees, which lead it to face several problems:

A deterioration of service for current maintenance operations, users support,

An increasing delay to handle questions and to deliver projects

A handmade functioning and a nearly nonexistent IS governance

Facing those observations, the ISD decided to launch a study to define a target organization and to consider putting a governance in place, which would let them managing the IS, while considering what’s at stakes for the school.

What did MLA do?

To meet those requirements, MLA proceeded through three steps

First, it carried out a study on the existing situation and on structural goals, by:

Establishing a thorough picture of the IS (existing and requirements) and of the ISD’s functioning, by meeting operators (between 20 and 25 meetings) and the IT team.

Collecting operators’ stakes and requirements on the targeted functioning for the ISD

Collecting the education office’s 5-year outlook for the ISD

Identifying structural goals for the target organization

The next step was to design a realistic target organization and governance meeting the operators’ needs. This scenario was shared and reviewed by the IT team to match their requirements.

MLA presented the school with:

A 3-year budgeted plan for the ISD, taking into account both the school’s economic constraints and the rise of activity

A governance tool to help the direction to manage structural choices for the IS

A redefinition of the operator’s responsibilities in the IS evolution, to involve them more in IT projects

The implementation phase should increase the delivery of the school’s ISD, especially for users.